1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an optical coupler and a method of manufacturing the same, and more particularly, to an optical coupler having Y-junction optical waveguides between input and output optical waveguides.
2. Related Art
Optical couplers, optical devices for dividing an optical signal into a plurality of optical signals, are the heart of an optical subscriber network. Optical couplers can be manufactured by thermally uniting two optical fibers, which requires a large amount of manual work. Thus, the manufacturing cost can be high, and direct use of the optical fibers can increase the size of the manufactured optical couplers.
I have found that an improved optical coupler would be desirable, and that efforts have been made to improve optical couplers. Exemplars of recent efforts in the art include U.S. Pat. No. 5,222,167 for OPTICAL COUPLER AND METHOD OF MANUFACTURING issued to Jean et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 4,165,225 for DISTRIBUTOR FOR OPTICAL SIGNALS issued to Auracher et al.
While these recent efforts provide advantages, I note that they fail to adequately provide a convenient and efficient optical coupler.